There is nothing more vitally significant in the lives of Athenian wives than the extent to which they saw themselves set aside and neglected for foreigners of more brilliant accomplishments, because they could not or would not break the bonds of fashionable tradition, which decreed for them silence and seclusion. In primitive conditions where no one is educated, the virtues may suffice for companionship; but at a certain stage of civilization, when men read and think, the woman who does not is sure to be practically excluded from his society, though she may still be his housekeeper or the toy of an idle hour. Athens in the height of her glory presented the strange anomaly of a respectable illiterate class from which the mothers of future citizens must be taken, and an educated class without civil rights who could not marry Athenians. If the latter had any domestic ties at all, they were forced into morganatic relations. This did not of necessity imply laxity of character; indeed, it was not always condemned by Athenian moralists. But no class could long maintain any high standard of virtue under such conditions. They opened the way for endless license. The gay and dissolute women from the East flocked to the Hellenic cities, and in the reckless corruption that followed, wise men trace a potent cause of Athenian decline. REVOLT OF THE ROMAN WOMEN [Illustration: Decorative image] · The Woman Question an Old One · · Character and Virtues of Early Roman Women · · Instances of Heroism · · Their Disabilities · · Primitive Roman Morals · · Servitude of Wives · Husband Poisoning · · The Oppian Law · The Revolt · · Crabbed Cato · Change in Laws · · Second Revolt · Hortensia · · The Marriage Question · · Intellectual Movement · Cornelia · [Illustration: Decorative image] I